1 Corinthians 15:35-49--The Resurrection Body

1 Corinthians 15:35-49
English Standard Version

The Resurrection Body
​35 But someone will ask, “How are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come?” 36 You foolish person! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. 37 And what you sow is not the body that is to be, but a bare kernel, perhaps of wheat or of some other grain. 38 But God gives it a body as he has chosen, and to each kind of seed its own body. 39 For not all flesh is the same, but there is one kind for humans, another for animals, another for birds, and another for fish. 40 There are heavenly bodies and earthly bodies, but the glory of the heavenly is of one kind, and the glory of the earthly is of another. 41 There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; for star differs from star in glory.

42 So is it with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable; what is raised is imperishable. 43 It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power. 44 It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. 45 Thus it is written, “The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit. 46 But it is not the spiritual that is first but the natural, and then the spiritual. 47 The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven. 48 As was the man of dust, so also are those who are of the dust, and as is the man of heaven, so also are those who are of heaven. 49 Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven.

---

We are back to an agricultural metaphor now about sowing a seed and the harvest that is reaped and how the seed that goes into the ground dies so that it can produce something that is the same, but different.  The seed in no way looks the same as the plant that comes from it, but the DNA of the seed and the plant are the same (if they knew about DNA at the time).  Also, one seed is planted, but a plant comes forth the is fruitful and bears many more seeds so that like Jesus talked about there is a harvest that is 10, 50, or 100 times more that which is planted.

So it is with the gospel and the work that it does.  Our natural bodies die and go into the ground and yet we receive a spiritual body that is fit for heaven.  We are still the same person and we know from The Mount of Transfiguration that others--even those who have never seen us before--will recognize us as the apostles knew who Moses and Elijah were in their resurrection bodies, but yet there will be something different about them too as we know from Jesus' answer to the Sadducees that we will no longer be married or given in marriage but will "be like the angels" (I assume this to mean that we're genderless).

Paul tells us that each of us will be unique in our new bodies in the same way that every animal is different and the sun and moon are different--each with its own glory, but we also see in other passages that we will also all be made in the very likeness of Christ (as all of us now are made in the likeness of Adam, but there is much diversity in all of humanity).

What goes into the ground when our bodies is buried is different from what will be raised in the resurrection of the dead.  For we now have a natural body of flesh, but we will then have a spiritual body like that of Christ.  Our bodies now are fit for earth, but our new bodies will be fit for heaven and the New Heaven and the New Earth.  So our earthly body goes from "ashes to ashes" and "dust to dust," but our spiritual body will be imperishable as it will no longer be influenced by sin.  So the best answer I can give is that we will be the same person, yet we will have a different body in the same way that a seed is the same but different than the plant that comes from it.